126 ROMANCE OF THE BEAVER 



bedding gathered, the dams thoroughly overhauled, 

 and the outdoor store-house a credit to the fore- 

 sight of the little caterers. 



The winter passed without excitement. During 

 January, a few days of unusually mild weather 

 produced a great thaw, so that the ice, weighted 

 down by the melting snow, broke away from the 

 shores. The beavers took advantage of this, and 

 came out to bask in the cold sunshine. Some 

 climbed on the lodges, while others more adven- 

 turous in spirit went ashore, their broad, deep trails 

 marking their short journeys to the woods. Besides 

 this little holiday no other event broke the monotony 

 of the long imprisonment. At last came the wel- 

 come death of winter, and the gradual arrival of 

 spring which saw the colony increased by no less 

 than twelve new arrivals. The founders of the 

 colony boasted of a fine family of five new kittens. 

 In the lodge next to them there were three, while 

 the pair in the upper pond had four, and all these 

 families were born within a period of two weeks. 

 The colony might now be said to be in a flourishing 

 condition, with a population of twenty-five, where 

 less than five years before there had been but two. 

 Unfortunately, such prosperity was not destined 

 to continue, or we might have seen the colony 

 double itself by the following spring. That would 

 have meant the facing of new problems in the way 

 of expansion, for even after allowing the departure 

 of two or three pairs, which would certainly have 



